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ABC To Offer Full Shows Online
vitaly.friedman writes to mention an Ars Technica story on the ABC's newest bid to stay relevant in the Information Age. As of the end of this month the network will be airing certain popular television shows on the ABC website, starting the morning after their first broadcast. From the article: "All programs will be shown in their entirety, including commercials which cannot be avoided. That's a smart move on ABC's part, as it ensures that advertisers will get another shot at hawking their wares to an audience that might otherwise change channels during commercial breaks or fast-forward through them if recorded. Aside from being unable to avoid commercials, watching the programs will be similar to watching timeshifted content in that viewers will be able to pause, fast forward, and rewind."
If ABC is really looking to make a splash, maybe they should offer some of these episodes the day *before* they air. Given how quickly buzz becomes stale after the fact, people would jump at a chance to get a preview of their favorite show.
Jim http://www.runfatboy.net/ -- A workout plan that doesn't feel like homework.
After all the customer is always right, and with all media (google included) you have to remember that the advertiser is the customer t and you the viewer is the product being sold.
>>viewers will be able to pause, fast forward, and rewind
What's this about not being able to skip commercials? Any commercials?
Say I want to watch just the final ten minutes of something, does that mean I must sit through SEVENTEEN minutes of commercials first before I'm "allowed" to view the ending?
No thanks. I (and everyone else, I suspect) will just wait for the Torrent.
No fast forward or rewind ability, enforced by DRM on the player.
More likely, enforced by the fact that you're streaming the data. While most video programs try to read ahead, the buffer likely wouldn't be more than enough to miss a single commercial.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Maybe if advertisers stopped making commercials that are crap, they wouldn't need to lock us out of fast forward during commercials.
It can be done. How many Super Bowls have had commercials better than the game?
What exactly does "Cannot be avoided" mean? do they actually think they can prevent people from skipping the commercials?
Um, yes?
It's very easy. Encode the video in Flash and do a php call so the file name is never revealed - not even the url to the directory where the file *is* is revealed. Can't be downloaded (even by workaround methods), and controls can be set in the embedded player so you can't fast-forward (my guess is the last part of the article submission is wrong - you can maybe rewind and then ff to the last point you were at in the video, but you won't be able to skip ahead).
The big video sites don't do this right now, but it is possible, and a lot of smaller sites do do it. We'll see if ABC is smart enough, but judging by the way they describe this, it sounds like they've figured it out.
I've been saying TV stations should do this exact thing for years. You want to stop "piracy" of your shows? Put them online for free. Show the ads; we know you've gotta make money. But don't force me to pay 2 bucks just because I wasn't home at the time the show was on and presumably don't have (or can't afford?) TiVo.
Now you've got a choice, at least with the bigger shows. Pay 2 bucks and watch them ad-free, or pay nothing and watch with ads. Pretty much the way it should be, if you ask me.
The only question left is what sort of quality we'll get. I mean considering HDTV is free, then ideally the online version should match that quality - but no way it will for reasons of bandwidth. Hopefully it'll at least match what you can find on file sharing sites, though... if they really are serious about doing away with that sort of thing, especially.
Forget the morons above when they complain about "oh, it's the day after? WAH WAH WAH" or "Can't skip the commercials WAH WAH WAH".
They're trying to embrace a new delivery medium and you these idiots are fricken complaining about it. Come on, ABC should be congratulated for thinking outside the standard line that RIAA and the MPAA have been harping on. The net will make a great delivery service and they're heading out into it full steam ahead.
But no, months ago people were saying this is what they should do, and now that they're doing it, it's not enough. Give them what they want, and you get a big "fuck you" in return.
I welcome this.
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
I wonder if Apple will still be charging a couple bucks an episode when viewers now have the choice of getting a commercial-loaded copy for free instead.
It'd be nice if the ad-supported version were available for free through iTMS, but that would probably require ABC to actually pay APPLE per download to cover bandwidth costs and overhead, which might be problematic.
Anyway, if Apple doesn't work out SOME kind of new deal, it seems safe to say their $2 iTMS episodes aren't gonna be selling very well anymore, except among the video iPod loyalists.
I agree to a certain extent, why should we pay for cable AND watch the commercials too, but television shows are costing ten's of millions to make, and many of them are sad sad failures. I would rather watch some commercials that generate revenue to create both the good and bad television then to have to pay $500 a month for 100 commercial free channels that are still filled with lots of garbage and I can't possibly watch all the content anyways.
Also, ABC doesn't get a dime from your cable bill. Cable companies are making huge profits by charging you to view ABC in digital or HD. Only those specialty channels like HBO that you pay extra for get revenue from your cable bill. Again, I would prefer if MOST television was not a premium channel because I don't think 100 HBO like channels would survive or offer the same quality of content as HBO.
Do what I do. I never watch TV in real time anymore. I record all the shows I want to watch on my PVR, and this way I can fast forward through the commercials. It saves me time (up to 12 minutes per hour of programming), and I am not annoyed by all the advertising.
If you don't like commercials, then don't watch TV. Its almost hypocritical to complain about commercials but expect to still watch television for free or cheap. The two have gone hand in hand since the beginning. Pick up a book or rent movies or play video games if you want cheap commercial free entertainment.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
I see a huge backlash from companies when they start catching their employees watching these shows at work.
....and see Slashdot headlines of "Study claims Billions of lost revenue weekly from staff watching streaming TV at work"
An easy to use access system (a web page) will mean anyone will be able to find and watch them with no software install (p2p etc.). This could be hard for IT administrators to stamp out.
I gaze into my crystal ball....
I don't know how many times I have heard people complaining about iTunes selling television shows. How many people are in an uproar because ABC is making money first from commericals aired during their shows on television AND by selling the show on iTMS. Guess what, they also sell their shows on DVD AND make money off syndication.
What is the purpose of your complaining?
First, you don't have to buy the shows on iTMS, most of you complaining probably don't even own an iPod let alone the iPod that works with this service.
Second, many people actually enjoy the shows that are being sold on iTMS, that is, they want to watch it more then once. I would jump on the bandwagon with you if iTMS sold shows for $1.99 per view, but you are buying a video file you can watch over again. It may not be within the same month, or year, but many people do enjoy watching a full season of TV over a few days or weeks.
Why is it that some people are so jealous or fanatical about companies that make money? Why bother to complain. If a company or entity forced you to contribute to their profit, then that is reason for complaining (i.e. the government and taxes or gas companies). But some corporation that sells television shows is really no target for the kind of criticism and whining people are doing. Your just wasting your breath and straining your fingers.
When someone complains about a product or service they have no intention of buying or participating in, then that is just moronic. It is a classic definition of an idiot.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
Maybe if advertisers stopped making commercials that are crap, they wouldn't need to lock us out of fast forward during commercials.
You whiny bastard. Seriously. These companies can't do anything right, can they?
All I see here is people complaining and getting modded up for it. As far as I'm concerned this is a great step in a great direction.
I think what it boils down to is that most people here just want shit for free, and will say anything to pretend that they have some valid objection with the system and that it warrants theft (or "copyright infringement" for the pedants).
Free/opensource software falls victim to the same tripe -- people pretend that they stand by the ideologies but really just want stuff for free -- and use the ideology as a guise to pirate non-free software like photoshop or Windows.
bleh.
Also, ABC doesn't get a dime from your cable bill.
I hate to nitpick, but that's (probably) inaccurate. Almost all channels carried by cable get a chunk of the bill. It's true that premium channels like HBO, Cinemax, and so forth get a lot more, but even basic cable channels usually take between 10 cents and $2 per subscriber. For example, BusinessWeek reported in 2003 that ESPN charges an average of $1.93 per subscriber per month.
Now, ABC itself usually doesn't get paid by your cable company, but the local broadcast affiliate that carries ABC probably does. Federal law provides both "must carry" and "retransmission consent" provisions that cable companies have to abide by. In essence, a local broadcaster can try to negotiate with the cable company to permit transmission in exchange for a fee. If the cable company refuses to pay, the broadcaster has the choice to block the cable company from transmitting its signal, or to demand that it do so for free. Early this year, a dispute with an ABC affiliate caused the cable company to pull the station off the cable system at the station's request.
With these provisions, the amount of money a broadcaster can get from the cable company depends on how popular the station is. Local affiliates of the "big 5" networks usually have bargaining power to compel the cable companies to pay. Independent broadcasters and religious stations, on the other hand, usually opt for more viewers through asserting the "must carry" rule.
I agree with the rest of your post; I just wanted to point out these facts, which most people don't seem to know about.
For example, I won't even consider touching the video on commercial web sites (except google). Why? Well, it's not because I'm morally opposed to downloading a video from ABC or CNN. No... it's because their video always sucks to an unbelievable degree, to the point where watching it is a nightmare. Let's consider:
... etc. The point is, the reason Bittorrent is so incredibly popular isn't because people are so excited that they can get an episode of Lost without commercials for free. They could already do that -- VCRs are old hat. The great thing about Bittorrent is that it's incredibly convenient compared to any of these pile-of-garbage corporate offerings.
And that's the problem with this ABC thing. It, like all the garbage before it, sucks. The network that created the show is going to offer a vastly inferior experience, with more hassle, than some random guys using bittorrent.
If they wanted to do something innovative, and better, they would simply have placed MPEG4 files (or torrents to keep their costs down) on their web site, with the commercials. This would have been much cheaper and easier to develop for them, and would be a better experience for their users. But of course, they never will do this, because the industry is insane.